The Congress on Wednesday alleged that the BJP Government has been promoting ‘crony capitalism’ to help select telecom companies. The party said abuse of discretion by Telecom Ministry would cause loss to the public exchequer.
AICC spokesman Randeep Surjewala said that latest in the list of Narendra Modi Government is the ‘Spectrum Scam 2.0’ whereby BJP Government is unilaterally and surreptitiously deferring recovery of spectrum auction amount by six years causing an interest loss of Rs 23,821 crore to the public exchequer.
Presenting the fact sheet at AICC Press conference, Surjewala said on August 8, 2016 the BJP Government invited auction of spectrum in 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1,800 MHz, 2,100 MHz, 2,300 MHz and 2,500 MHz bands. He said the auction policy for spectrum was decided by the Supreme Court in 2012 also known as the ‘2G Case’.
“But auction ended on October 6, 2016 with auction sale of 965 MHz at a value of Rs 65,789.12 crore. Out of this, an upfront amount to be paid was Rs 32,000 crore and the balance amount to be paid in installments was Rs 33,789.12 crore. There were three successful bidders ie Reliance Jio (269.9 MHz for Rs 13,672 crore), Airtel (173.8 MHz for Rs 14,244 crore) and Idea (349.20 MHz for Rs 12,798 crore). The auction amount was itself a set back to the Government. The brokerages firm IDFC Securities limited expected to raise Rs 80,000 crore thus there was short fall of Rs 14,281 crore below the expectation. Even the budget for fiscal 2017 pegged the revenue target at Rs 98,995 crore. To this extent, auction amount was less by Rs 33,206 crore,” Surjewala pointed.
The party alleged that in order to help the telecom companies in a clandestine manner, an inter-ministerial committee comprising of Telecom and Finance Ministry was constituted and in flagrant violation of the Supreme Court judgment in 2-G Case and ignoring the inviolable terms of auction, the inter-ministerial committee decided to alter the auction terms by recommending payment of Rs 33,789.12 crore within 16 years (19 years after counting the no-payment period of first three years) instead of the original 10 years.
“Telecom Ministry and Telecom Commission have both put their stamps of approval on this blatant abuse of authority and misuse of discretion to cause a loss to public exchequer. It is now awaiting seal of approval from the Union Cabinet,” Congress charged in a statement.
Surjewala alleged that Modi’s clarion call for ‘Zero Tolerance for Corruption’ has been repeatedly proving to be ‘jumlas’ in the light of series of scams over last 40 months, particularly, ‘lalit Modi Gate’, ‘Vyapam Scam’, ‘Chhattisgarh PDS Scam’, ‘GSPC Scam’, ‘Panama Papers Scam’, ‘Gir lion Sanctuary land Allotment Scam’, ‘Sahara-Birla Papers’, ‘Spectrum Non-Recovery Scam 1.0’ to name a few.